Abstract

In the last five years, several countries have expanded and strengthened their arrangements for regulating existing chemicals, and for controlling the introduction into commerce of new chemicals. One simple, uncontroversial fact has led many to believe that those controls are necessary: the natural environment is now contaminated with many synthetic organic chemicals, some of which are believed to be carcinogens, mutagens, teratogens, or several of the above. Technological progress in organic analysis over the last three decades has been so rapid that relatively quick and inexpensive identification of such contaminants at parts per billion concentrations is now possible. A one cubic centimeter sample of drinking water can be processed, essentially instantaneously, into a computer listing of synthetic organic contaminants.

So much is now uncontroversial, but controversy begins with interpretation, and with the subsequent policy proposals.